Shifting Fundamentals
by ClaudiaRain
Summary: In which Sara's injured, Leonard plays doctor (or maybe secretly is one), and nothing's ever the same again.
**AN:** I own nothing, just having some fun.

 **XXXXXX**

Pain.

It's the first thing she feels when she reluctantly returns to consciousness. And that pain is _everywhere_.

Her abdomen, her arms, her feet (how?) and mostly her head. In fact, the pain in her head is more like a strumming beat that won't end.

Her first instinct is to go back to sleep until whatever she's feeling wears off. What had she done last night? It better have been worth it for her to wake up with this unrelenting headache.

Though upon further reflection, Sara doesn't think it feels like a hangover; it feels like she was in a fight, and it must have been a bad one.

She blinks her eyes open (they feel sore and dry, as if she hasn't used them in a long time). The ceiling above her is not from any bedroom she recognizes, and she's had quite a few over the years. It's also unnaturally bright where she is, and actually…she's not even in a bed. It's more like…is this a _dentist_ chair? More memories slide into place as she realizes she's in the medical bay.

Oh right. She's on a ship that travels through time. It's strange to wake up to that reality – seems like it should be reversed and that the time traveling is part of her dreams (or nightmares, depending on the perspective).

If she's in the med bay, that means she must have been right to guess she'd been in a fight, and it must have gone south. Too bad she can't remember exactly what precipitated it. Who had she been fighting? Why, where…when?

"Welcome back, sleeping beauty," a voice drawls from her right, and she manages to turn her head to find Leonard sitting next to her, characteristic smirk on his face. "About time you stopped sleeping your days away in here."

"Days?" she manages to say, and her throat is as dry as her eyes. It's a wonder she can speak at all.

He hands her a cup of water and she sips it slowly, making sure everything works as she does so – hand, arm, mouth, throat. Her coordination seems okay, and her balance. Which is good because who'd designed these 'beds' anyways? She feels like she'll topple off it if she leans too far one way or the other.

"Seven days, if you want to be exact about it," he tells her.

" _A_ _week_?" She nearly chokes on the water and he grabs the cup when it slips from her grasp, which at least saves her from spilling it all over herself. "I don't remember what happened."

"Ambush," he says, grimly. "At least, that's the way Ray tells it. I didn't see it myself. By the time I got there, you were out and Ray was barely managing to hold them off."

"Careful," she warns, "with that semi-concerned tone, and sitting next to my bed, people might think you care about someone else's well-being."

He leans back in the chair with a wry grin. "Hardly. I've been hanging around waiting to see if you'd finally shuffle off this mortal coil. I called dibs on your room."

"It's the exact same as yours."

"Actually, it's bigger by four square feet. In any event, since you've decided to stick around a while longer, it looks like I'll have to put my plans –" he pauses to send her a meaningful look "– on ice."

She groans. "Gideon, give me a sedative so I can go back under. _Please_."

Gideon's cool voice is even when she replies, "After the injury you sustained, it is not advisable to –"

"Shelve that request, Gideon," Leonard orders. "Sara suffered a head injury and isn't yet fully capable of making medical decisions. Don't listen to anything she says in that regard." He shoots a stern glare at Sara. "Especially when she's making poorly phrased jokes that an AI might take seriously."

"Understood," Gideon says, instantly.

Sara feels like she should be furious at him (and Gideon) but she can't muster up the energy required. Maybe he has a point, but how did he got the AI to listen to him instead of her – wasn't Gideon supposed to be neutral?

Sara looks at the ceiling, as if Gideon is up there and not a computer program hosted within the ship. "Gideon, since when do you play favorites?"

"I do not understand the question," Gideon replies, and Sara _almost_ thinks the AI is mocking her. (Would that be possible?)

"Gideon and I have grown closer the past few days," Leonard says, holding up his crossed fingers as if to demonstrate.

"Did you convince an AI to like you more than me? How'd you manage that?"

"I have a way about me."

"A _way_ ," she scoffs, sitting up further and wondering if she can make a run for it to get away from the two of them. Well, Leonard at least, since Gideon is technically everywhere.

Leonard asks for a rundown of Sara's current condition and Gideon responds with a two minute synopsis filled with jargon Sara barely understands – or more accurately, is barely paying attention to – because she's busy watching Leonard nod along to what Gideon says, occasionally asking questions, and otherwise acting like he's acquired a medical degree in the week she was unconscious.

"Who are you?" she demands. "My primary care physician?"

He shoots her a withering look. "I'll sum it up for you since you recently suffered a brain injury: you're doing much better and Gideon predicts no permanent effects."

She's relieved at that since the words 'brain injury' had caused her anxiety to spike. She'll ask Gideon about it later – right now she doesn't want to know the details.

Leonard's moved to one of the display screens near her bed and when Sara reads a few lines, she realizes it contains medical information of some kind. _Her_ medical information. He obviously understands whatever it says and he doesn't seem too concerned by it (which is strangely reassuring). He waves at the screen every few seconds to pull up the next slide of information.

"Who _are_ you?" she repeats. They've been working together maybe six months now and there's still so much she doesn't know about him. But she'd like to.

"I've been doing a lot of reading in my downtime," he tells her absently, as if that would completely explain why he was so at ease reading about her medical history. And hell, to him it probably did explain it.

She wonders… "Gideon, how long has Leonard been here?"

"Don't answer that, Gideon," he jumps in.

Gideon talks right over him: "Currently, Leonard has been here for 4.7 hours. Since you were brought to the med bay, he has spent 82.7% of his time here."

"Traitor," he hisses. "I told you not to listen to anything Sara said."

"In capacity to her medical care," Gideon clarifies. "Should I extend it to all orders?"

"Never mind, Gideon," he sighs, wearily.

Sara's too distracted by Gideon's provided statistics to argue about her decision-making capabilities. "82.7%?" she asks, somewhat amazed.

"I've been bored," he announces, dramatically. "It's not like there's much to do on this ship when we're docked in 1990 and Hunter's off on some personal artifact search. What better way to kill time than to talk to the one person on this ship who doesn't irritate me?" He would have thrown Mick in there as an option, too, but they're going through a strained period in their friendship – when that happened, distance was best.

"That's…sweet," Sara says, unsure if he's complimenting her or not.

"I meant you didn't irritate me because you were unconscious and couldn't talk back. Now that you're awake, it no longer applies."

And there's the sarcasm right back in place, as she expected.

Something else strikes her as unusual. She's had her share of waking up in hospitals and she's never felt this clean before. "Why do I feel like I just showered?" In fact, she doesn't even feel like she has to brush her teeth.

"I _generously_ offered to give you sponge baths, but alas, it wasn't necessary. Gideon put you in some kind of stasis to help with healing. Hunter told me about it." He pauses, and Sara figures he's trying to think of a way to explain it without all the technical terms. "Long story short, it's future tech that works in theory, but should never work in practical applications. It's still in the experimental stages, even in Hunter's time. Yet, somehow, it worked. I _watched_ it work." There's a tone in his voice she can't quite place and it's bothering her.

"Experimental?" Not that she isn't used to those tactics, for better or worse, but it surprises her that he'd been fine with it.

It's obvious that he doesn't want to elaborate. "I didn't have a choice."

She wonders if that means the others had forced him into it. "Well, it sounds slightly crazy, but it must have helped. I don't feel like I've been in bed for seven days." Not that she feels like her usual self, but she's doing pretty well, all things considered.

"It felt like a lot longer to us," he mutters.

When she turns to look at him, twinges of pain shoot down the back of her neck, as if to remind her how much worse things could be. "Are the others out now?"

"Left a few hours ago."

"You said you've been staying behind, but why? Isn't going out and wreaking havoc more your style? It _is_ your favorite pastime."

" _Someone_ has to stay here with you," he says, like it's a chore and not something he'd volunteered for, objections of anyone else be damned. (Like Ray who'd wanted to stay back because of his useless guilt, or Hunter who seemed to think he was in charge, or Mick who'd told him he couldn't recognize him anymore and did he even realize it had been _over a week_ since he'd committed an actual crime? Thankfully, Hunter had taken Mick along with him that particular day and his partner had gotten to beat a few bad guys, so that had cheered his mood significantly.)

She's not sure what to make of his tone. "Don't sound so enthusiastic about it."

"Nowhere I'd rather be," he replies, and he tries to make that sound flippant, too. He doesn't pull it off.

She presses a hand to her head, hoping to stop the pain. It's gotten a little better, though not by much. "Gideon, can I have a pain reliever?"

The AI doesn't respond until Leonard says, "Ease up, Gideon. If it's safe, she can have whatever she wants."

"Understood," Gideon says.

The thought of having to get his _approval_ for pain medication galls her. "You're not my keeper," she scowls, swinging her legs off the bed and calculating the odds of standing successfully. "Stop acting like you are."

"Sorry, do you want me to leave? I can turn all decisions back over to Hunter, which is what he wanted before I told him you wouldn't be a fan of that arrangement."

She cringes at the thought of Hunter making medical decisions for her. Not that she thinks he'd do anything to harm her, but it implies a level of trust they simply don't share. And that isn't even Hunter's fault, really, it's more her – she doesn't trust anyone easily. Of course, that makes her wonder when she'd started trusting Leonard with anything. Strange how that had happened without her noticing.

"Gideon," Leonard announces, when Sara doesn't answer him, "send a message to Hunter that Sara's awake and requests –"

"Stop. Gideon, don't do that." She pulls the IV out of her arm, mostly to prove that she's still in control of what happens to her, no matter what Leonard or Gideon might say. It occurs to her a second too late that she might have sabotaged herself – what if Gideon declares that was against her best interest and tells Leonard she should be confined to the med bay or something? She holds her breath for a moment and then lets it out when Gideon remains silent.

Leonard's pressing some gauze to her arm where the IV had been. "That wasn't recommended."

"You're not strapping me down!" she exclaims, caught up in her previous thoughts and yanking her arm away from him.

He's thoroughly confused. "What?"

It appalls her to ask, but she forces herself: "Gideon, can I go back to my room?" (She's not scared of Gideon refusing, she simply has a feeling that if the AI does, Leonard will have no problem enforcing Gideon's 'suggestions' for her optimal recovery. And she's not about to subject herself to the humiliation of fighting him in her current state and losing due to it.)

"Your injuries are 78.3% healed," Gideon informs her. "There is no additional risk if you return to your room."

"Hear that?" she asks Leonard. "Gideon agrees I can go."

He's trying to parse out her line of thought and thinks he's come to the right conclusion. "I never had any intention of keeping you here against your will, and I certainly wouldn't tie you down. Though if you want to revisit this conversation at a later date, I wouldn't take much persuading."

"Good," she says, quickly, then rethinks her answer. "To the first part. Not the last part." Right? _Oh no_.

He's silently laughing at her; she can see it in his eyes. He shouldn't be able to rattle her so easily. She blames her injuries, sure it's only the fact that she's not in her normal state of unassailable calm that has allowed him to sneak past her defenses. (There's absolutely no way he's been there the entire time.)

"Gideon," Leonard asks, "before our patient so intelligently ripped out her IV, did you give her any pain killers?"

"No," Gideon replies smoothly, and _again_ Sara feels as if she's being mocked. This time it's probably in her head. (At least, she hopes it is, because the thought of a world where Leonard and Gideon are best friends is somewhat terrifying.)

He crosses the room and opens one of the cabinets, clearly searching for something specific. He returns with two white, unmarked pills and a glass of water. "Strongest I can give you without setting back your recovery."

That's good enough for her. It's not until she's swallowed them that she considers she's just taken unknown medication from him without hesitation. Again, she can't decide how much of that is due to not thinking clearly and how much is due to, well, him. "Not that I care, but did you have any medical or legal authority to give me whatever that was?"

"Define 'authority'." He pauses. "And 'legal'."

"You better know what you're doing."

"Hey, Mick'll be happy that I just broke the law! Distribution of controlled substances. Granted it's not arson or felony theft, but it's technically illegal, so it counts." He smiles broadly at her and Sara has no idea what he's talking about.

"Whatever you gave me, I trust it won't kill me. And since Gideon basically said I'm good as new, I'm leaving."

Something in his face shifts and he steps away from her, giving her room to slide off the bed. She mentally cheers when her legs don't collapse under her. "You can end your vigil now, and return to…whatever it is that you do. I'll be fine."

He merely holds an arm out toward the door, indicating she can leave if she wants.

Hunter's time must have made quite the medical advances since she'd expected to be much weaker. Not that she feels all that great, but it should be _much_ worse.

She makes sure to walk along the wall so she can grab it if she gets dizzy. She feels Leonard watching her every step as if he can control her with the intensity of his gaze alone.

She counts fifteen steps before the room tilts and sways, and she reaches for the wall that's suddenly not where she left it. Leonard's next to her before she can say a word. She leans against him, grateful for his presence, though she doesn't say it.

"Good as new, you say? You're right, maybe I should leave you here and get back to 'whatever it is I do'."

She grips his arm tighter even though he's made no move to step away. "Yeah, you do that. After I get back to my room, okay?"

"Do you need help? Should I _carry_ _you_?"

Her look would have made anyone else on the ship scurry away from her.

He only laughs. "I'll take that as a no."

Once she has her bearings and the dizziness has passed, she very deliberately lets go of him and proceeds to make the long, arduous journey back to her room. Of course, she'd ended up with the absolute furthest one from the med bay.

Leonard walks along with her. She knows it's probably eating at him, that he must be dying to make a joke about how this is taking three hours, but when she glances at his face, he's not looking at her and seems deep in thought. Perhaps he's thinking about what to do now that his babysitting duties are over and he's finally free of her.

The second she's in her room, she stumbles for her bed and falls backwards on it. The move causes her more pain and she ruthlessly suppresses any reaction to it. Pain's better than feeling nothing at all. That much she knows.

She can't see Leonard and waves her hand in a gesture meant for him to go away. "Thanks for walking me back. Now you can leave me here to die." She spreads her arms out and wonders how long the pain killers will take to kick in.

She hears the doors close and assumes he's left without a word. The thought disappoints her, though she doesn't dwell on why that might be the case. She'll have to ask Ray what exactly happened that led up to her injuries…later. Much later. After she's more fully recovered.

She rolls onto her side and just barely stops her instinct to attack when she sees Leonard standing next to her bed. What is he _doing_?

Her expression must be question enough since he says, without preamble, "You died."

Is that supposed to be news to her? "Everyone knows that."

"Not before. This time. You were dead when we got you back to the ship."

His words chill her, not _what_ he's telling her, but the _way_ he's saying it, as if he's completely detached from what it means. He might as well be telling her about the weather.

He must have been alluding to this earlier when he'd said he had no choice in agreeing to use experimental tech to save her.

"Looks like death didn't stick this time, either," she tells him, glibly. What else can she say? She's not entirely sure that she shouldn't have stayed dead the first time around, and maybe this would have been a chance for the universe to even things out. Not that she _wants_ to die. (She had before. She doesn't now.)

"It's not funny."

"Are you sure? The circumstances of my resurrection are seen by some as a cosmic joke."

He glances away and she can tell he's upset by the tenseness of his jaw. She should probably be more sensitive to what he'd gone through. If the roles had been reversed – she shuts that thought down instantly. She can't go there.

She expects him to argue with her or throw out another cutting remark and leave, which makes what he does next all the more jarring – he kicks off his shoes, jumps over her, and lies down on the other side of her bed.

She rolls over to face him, pleased when the movement doesn't cause any undue pain. The drugs must be starting to work. "By all means, make yourself at home."

"Thanks," he says absently, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling.

"Leonard."

"Sara."

"I'm not sure what you're doing, but I'm really tired tonight. And my head hurts. Maybe next time?"

"Ooh, next time?" He sends her a biting grin. "That's a legitimate offer, you can't take it back now."

She has no idea why she finds him more amusing than anything else. This back-and-forth of theirs is hardly new and she usually gives as good as she gets – at least until she's irritated enough to walk away or throw him out. He's distracting her from the lingering discomfort, and suddenly she doesn't _want_ him to be anywhere else except with her.

She never takes him seriously because he's joking. He's _always_ joking, and so is she, and they both know it. It's familiar and easy. They'd had a connection from the beginning and they'd become friends almost instantly, whereas with everyone else it had taken some time. They'd understood each other, and sure, there's affection there, but nothing too deep or too real.

Except now it seems like there's more and she isn't sure if it's because of what had happened to her a week ago, or if that depth of feeling has been here the entire time and she hasn't seen it. (Or had _chosen_ not to see it, because that was safer.)

She isn't sure if it's one-sided, either. Oh, she knows he'd always be up for some fun (maybe she would be, too, given the right circumstances) but for some reason, the thought of having anything 'casual' with him feels like it'd hurt more than having nothing.

Life was a whole lot easier when she didn't want anything from it.

"You're staring at me," he says, pulling her back to reality. "Not that I blame you – not many can resist."

Best to get to the heart of the matter. "Why are you here?"

"I'm watching you. You're still recovering."

How quickly he'd dropped his 'I don't care in the least' act. She decides to test a budding hypothesis. "What qualifies you for that job?"

"I have extensive practice with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation."

She laughs a little – yeah, that's what she'd been expecting. "You also make a joke every time you're uncomfortable. Or want to avoid saying something real."

"Like you're any better," he accuses, and he probably has a point there.

She edges closer to him – he's currently the warmest thing in her room. "Did Ray tell you how things went down…when I got hurt?"

Leonard's expression noticeably darkens. "Only in vague terms. We haven't…done much talking since then."

She could sense the layers in that sentence. "What'd you do?"

"I might have threatened to kill him."

"Leonard –"

"If Gideon hadn't brought you back –"

"I know. That doesn't mean it's okay. I'm sure Ray feels awful and I'm equally to blame if I let myself get caught off guard."

"Yeah, well, none of us were thinking clearly at the time. He's lucky. Back in the day I probably _would_ have killed him. Or if I was in an extra charitable mood, he might have gotten away with a beating."

"Have you begun to learn actual restraint?" She makes sure to sound impressed, as if this isn't something she's been seeing for months now.

"I think I'm evolving," he muses, thoughtfully.

"We're all very proud."

"Things have settled down since our argument, but it's still…frosty around here."

Does he just throw in those puns whenever he can? Two could play that game. " _Icy_ what you did there."

He does a double take at her.

"Get it? I see? Icy?" She laughs, probably finding herself way too amusing.

"Why don't you leave the attempts at humor to me."

"Come on," she cajoles, "that was a good one."

His smile's her only answer.

"It's quiet around here with everyone gone." Sometimes, without the others, she thinks it borders on eerie.

"Yeah, no idea when they'll be back. We have the run of the ship if we want it. Hey, we could probably go somewhere. Gideon –"

"No," Gideon interrupts, crisply, and it's Sara's turn to laugh.

"Looks like Hunter anticipated one of us might try to steal his time travel ship."

"I wanted to _borrow_ it. And he stole this ship first, by the way," Leonard reminds her, as if that justifies him trying to steal (or 'borrow') it in turn.

"Still, let's wait for them before we go anywhere."

Neither of them says anything and Sara shuts her eyes. She thinks that despite being out for a week, she might fall right back to sleep. She hasn't slept next to anyone in…she can't even remember how long (it takes too much trust).

"I missed you," he says suddenly, into the silence.

She opens her eyes to find he's turned onto his side, too. They're eye to eye this way, and he's quiet for so long that she begins to wonder if he's waiting for her to speak. She doesn't look away, though. She can't.

He moves his hand over a few inches, as if he's going to reach out to her, then doesn't follow through. "You _died_." His words are different this time, they're no longer dry and empty, now they're filled with…something that haunts her.

"I'm still here," she whispers, pressing her hand onto his.

He turns his hand over so that he can take hold of hers and bring it to his mouth, pressing a light kiss to the back of it.

She inhales sharply, feeling tears prick at her eyes, and it surprises her – and yes, maybe it even scares her. It's been a long time since she felt anything like this and it's even more startling when she contrasts it with the unending numbness she'd felt for so long after her resurrection. She'd moved past that after working with this team for a few months and it had been the hardest thing she'd ever done. (Yes, harder even than regaining her soul.)

"You can't leave me here with these people," he says, and he's trying to joke with her, but she hears the sincerity in his tone. It borders on pleading. "What's going to happen if Mick's the only person left here keeping me sane?"

"You two were…fine before us."

"Sure. We were 'fine'." They both knew she'd have to stretch that word pretty far to make it even remotely apply. "I'm different now. I hate it."

"No. You don't."

"No, I don't. I blame you, by the way…all of you."

"I'm different now, too, you know. When I died and came back – the first time around – I wasn't the same. That much you know. What you don't know is I never felt like there was any reason for me to be here. I had nothing. Not even my family felt like enough to live for. I went through the motions because I was supposed to, because I had to, but I didn't _want_ to. That's why I joined this team. If I was back, I might as well try and make a difference, right? Try to balance the scales. And I figured if something happened to me in the process, if I died again," she feels him grip her hand tighter, "well, no big deal. It'd just be the world restoring its natural order."

She can tell he wants to speak and he's holding himself back, waiting for her to finish.

"Do you know how long I felt hollow inside? I may have been alive, but it took me a long time to _live_ ," she says, softly. "That's thanks to this mission, to this team. And to you."

"Sara, you have a place here. You belong with us and I know everyone on this ship would say the same. You _matter_."

"We _all_ matter," she replies, and leans over to kiss him, because if dying (again) isn't a sign to take a chance, then nothing ever will be.

"Oh thank _God_ ," he mutters against her mouth, pulling her closer so she's half on top of him. "I was beginning to go crazy thinking I was alone out here."

"No, we're definitely both out here," she assures him, then wavers slightly as she sits up. "This isn't a game, though. This is…a lot more to me. If you don't want that, speak now or forever hold your peace."

His eyes widen as he stares up at her. "You just used a marriage metaphor on me and I'm not already out in the hall? I'm not _off the ship_? Believe me, this is as stunning to me as it is to you."

She hits him on the shoulder. "I'm serious."

He's studying her with curious intensity. "I am, too. What have you _done_ to me?" He seems to be asking himself more than her.

"Nothing you didn't want done, I hope." There's a hint of uncertainty in her words, and she'd never have guessed that she'd want reassurance as much as he did. (That _either_ of them would want it.)

He flips them over so fast that she's on her back with him leaning over her before she knows it's happening. She'd forgotten how much she misses being matched like that. He brushes some hair away from her eyes and tells her, "I want everything."

"Good. I do, too." A sudden thought occurs to her. "This is borderline unethical, you know. You're essentially my doctor."

"Yes, _ethics_ have always been a main concern of ours," he drawls, though he knows she only brought it up because she's amused by it. "If you want, I'll happily turn your care back over to Hunter or Gideon."

"Nah, don't bother," she says, and when he attempts to get up, she pulls him back down. "This only makes it hotter."

"I love this side of you, well, _every_ side of you," he says, "but if you don't ask her, I'm going to ask her."

She heaves a sigh. And he claims he isn't ethical. "Gideon, am I up for…" Oh God, she can't ask Gideon _that_. What if the AI keeps logs? She can picture Stein accidentally reading them out loud one day and his ensuing horror. "Um, physical activity?"

Leonard's far too entertained by the fact that she won't spell out her exact request, and he mouths along with the AI when Gideon says, "Physical activity is not recommended."

"Gideon, you're killing me here," she swears at the ceiling, then turns back to Leonard. "When I was out, did you program her to say whatever you wanted?"

"Believe me, if she said whatever I wanted, we wouldn't be having this conversation. As a matter of fact, we wouldn't be having _any_ conversation."

"'Not recommended' isn't a 'no'," Sara tries. "How about we compromise? I'll let you do all the work."

"Always so selfless, Ms. Lance," his words shake slightly with laughter as he presses his mouth to the side of her neck.

" _Fine_. Have it your way. What's not too strenuous? We could sleep…or you could go back to kissing me."

"Oh yeah, as your doctor I can say that is _definitely_ recommended," he smirks down at her.

"Spoken like a true medical professional."

"I take offense at that. There was never anything professional about me."

She's laughing when he kisses her again.

None of them are guaranteed tomorrow; the least they can do is live for today.

 **XXXXXX**


End file.
